


Been breaking for a lifetime

by QueenofCheese (Supertights)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Everything Hurts, F/M, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mentioned Allura (Voltron), Missing Persons, POV Alternating, Team as Family, VLD Final Episode What Final Episode | FEWFE
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-19 20:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17008809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/pseuds/QueenofCheese
Summary: Shiro goes missing. Keith goes searching and this time, the other paladins tag along. The last time Keith chased Shiro down alone, it could've ended very differently for everyone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. So, S8 left me a bit underwhelmed tbh and I wanted to write something along the lines of a fix-it. Thanks for reading! :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro is used to a number of immutable certainties in his life. Keith loves him. Keith will always save him. As many times as it takes. 
> 
> But how many times is too many, and when does it become a burden instead of a promise?

Shiro’s bone tired when he returns to his quarters and picks up the tablet from the bed. Nothing from Keith, but maybe it’s his turn to reach out this time. He’s not surprised when Keith doesn’t pick up, they haven’t spoken in months and it’s no one’s fault, it’s just their lives, it’s been their lives for a while. Hours talking about everything and anything reduced to a few messages, short quick bursts, and a photo or two, but nothing substantial. Nothing where they can share the same physical space, not since the dinner honouring Allura last year. The night the Lions left and it was truly over.

Most of the time it feels like Keith’s not coming back to him. His thoughts travel in circles around the idea and he can almost talk himself into it. Keith looked happy the last time they talked. Happy but tired, distracted, looking off to the side at something.

When was the last time he made feel Keith happy? When did _he_ last feel happy?

It makes him frown, he can’t remember; which leads to his next thought-- Keith would tell him, wouldn’t he? If he found someone else.

Shiro’s had no shortage of offers, and even now, he discourages the flirting that comes his way. It’s just-- he’s _lonely_ , and the loneliness is starting to wear on him. He went for years without the kind of touch that humans thrive on as a species; then Voltron happened. Even though it was war, he was immersed in casual familial love; he misses the simple act of walking into a room full of people he loves, talking and laughing, and feeling love reciprocated.

The loss of Allura, his dear friend and confidant, the person that he spent many nights laughing or crying with on the main deck of the castle, wears him down as well. It was the one relationship he truly struggled with after returning in his current form. Their friendship wasn’t the same, it couldn’t be, and losing her is a wound that won’t heal, always breaking open and breaking his heart again.

Because they could have fought harder for her. Why didn’t they fight harder?

And Keith, the one person he might talk to about it, is _absent_.

He doesn’t know how he feels about drifting apart glacially after the heat he took for granted in the beginning; never outright saying it’s over. He loves Keith, he’ll never _not_ love Keith, but at some point, they need to address the yawning chasm between them in the shape of pure physical and emotional distance.

Maybe he _did_ think it would be different after the war, deep down, but that’s on him, no one else.

He’s discovered since Voltron disassembled that the Atlas is not the same, and it can’t be. They’re his crew, not his friends. He can be friendly _with_ them but he can’t befriend them. Nothing is like it was with the paladins, it’s a question of rank. Rank that the paladins often disregarded or transformed into what they needed at the time, what _he_ needed.

Combing his hair off his face, he picks up the glasses and slides them into place. Distinguished is how most describe him now. Old is how he interprets it. He’s too young to feel this old.

He looks around his quarters, there’s more photos than anything else to be seen. The trophy which he’s glued down so there can be no attempt at take backs; his paladin helmet on a shelf gathering dust; a simple lacquered wooden box.

Shaking his head, he tries to rid himself of this mood, he only has to visit Keith to fix it, so they can talk, really _talk_ , about everything, finally lay it all out.

A shower is what he needs for the moment, follow it with something to eat and a good sleep, and maybe it will help fight off the emotional demons for one night. Good sleep... right now _any_ sleep would be good but every time he closes his eyes it’s there--the dream.

Except he doesn’t think it is, not anymore, and today he walked in the dream while he was on the bridge, leaving one plane for another so smoothly that he only became aware again when someone touched his hand and he turned to strike them down.

For two minutes he was unresponsive to everyone around him. As he came out of it, arm raised, the air shivering with lethal power, he heard a single word, whispered. He doesn’t know who said it; he doesn’t even care.

_“Champion.”_

There’s going to be fallout from this; a medical at the minimum, a psych evaluation, any number of other things. Captains who fade out on the bridge of a ship like the IGF-Atlas and almost kill a crew member can kiss it all goodbye, captains with his kind of history.

A headache has been building behind his eyes since it happened, like a storm cloud gathering strength, and when he catches his reflection, he sees something else. It’s lurking at the edge of his awareness-- and it shoots _terror_ through him. For more days that he cares to count, he turns away from it; ignoring it.

After today, he can’t afford to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how strong this chapter is, prepare for Keith in the next one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith receives an old message from Shiro.

It’s early when he gets back and finds a missed call from Earth waiting on his comm console, left over half a phoeb ago, lost in an avalanche of messages. Damn. He meant to contact Shiro when he was on base last time but instead got caught up in meetings. So many planets, so many people affected, people that the Blade can help and he’s trying to make it work, to make a difference and change the perception of the Galra.

Shiro’s face appears and Keith jerks in surprise. Shiro _never_ leaves messages. He looks tired, troubled, an expression on his face like pain, emotional _and_ physical. “Keith...  Keith, I’ve been dreaming….” He thinks the recording has glitched for nearly three doboshes until Shiro shakes his head and looks around, eyes glazed, his expression uncertain. “I- I need to talk to you, call me back?”

The timbre of that voice, the fear beneath followed by the hopefulness, sends a shiver up his spine and he opens a line back. He can’t quite work out the time difference in his head but thinks it’s got to be sometime during the night. If Shiro’s allowed himself time to sleep, he’ll pick up but there’s no answer so Keith leaves him a message, which he habitually never does either.

Kosmo sticks his head over Keith’s shoulder, licking wolf slobber down his cheek as he talks to Shiro. He pats the wolf distractedly and tries to remember when he last got to hold Shiro or spend the night with him, or even just talked to him without the benefit of doing it through a screen, and it’s a while.

He gathers up an armful of space wolf to cuddle, Kosmo’s tongue slaps him around the face a bit more before the lump jumps off, abandoning him to curl up on the bed, leaving Keith alone with his thoughts again.

They’re barely together, it’s their lives now, a couple in name only. He flushes with guilt, it’s been quintants since he spared Shiro this much thought. He knows on some level that Shiro isn’t perfect either; it’s only the call log that reveals Shiro even tries to get in touch but the number of calls has been steadily reducing for half a deca-phoeb.

He scrapes a hand down his face, groaning, he hates this slow drift they’ve fallen into. It isn’t right, they fought so hard for so long, not to be together at the end. He doesn’t equate together with happy, he’s happy, he thought Shiro was too despite the distance between them. He could take a couple of quintants, go to Earth, they could talk, fix things, but a cursory glance at his schedule tells him it’s impossible right now.

Keith tries to contact Shiro again, and when he can’t get through he calls Pidge. “Hey, Pidge,” he says, smiling. “How are you?”

Chip is running around behind her, and Matt is chasing after the robot like he’s trying to catch a chicken, they’re both laughing hard. Pidge follows his line of sight and glances back, then returns her attention to Keith, frowning. “I’m good, _you_ look like shit. Ever heard of downtime? Come home for a few days, spend some time with us. Lance said even he misses you last time he came to visit. I had to check him for a fever.”

He snorts a laugh; every visit to Earth is quintants away from the Blade and their work. “Maybe,” he replies, avoiding it, and fidgets. “Have you seen Shiro lately? I was trying to contact him earlier.”

She scrunches her face up for a tick. “Oh, a month or two ago, maybe.” Then she grimaces. “Sorry, I get busy. He looked tired though-- like you like tired. He wouldn’t take a break either.” She shouts back at Matt, asking if he’s seen Shiro, her brother stops and looks over, shaking his head and shouting something that Keith can’t hear. Pidge turns back to face him. “Matt hasn’t seen him since thanksgiving eve.”

Keith has to recall the universe’s newer shared celebration, one of thanks for the end of the war, for survival through dark times, for family, for lovers, for fresh starts and healing. He didn’t spend it with Shiro this year, the first time they haven’t since they all came together to remember Allura.

“Gimme a sec, I’ll call dad.” He tries to stop her but she’s already on the line with her father, he hears most of the conversation one-sidedly but it’s not sounding good. “Dad said he hasn’t heard from Shiro, neither has mom.” Pidge looks concerned, teeth worrying her lip. “Don’t leave, Keith, it’s too hard to get you back again. I’m gonna make some more calls and hack a planetary database.” She says it as casually as saying, “I’m ordering a pizza.”

Consider him told off then, he asks Kosmo to get him a snack from the commissary, they should still be serving. The wolf returns quickly with a bag tied around his neck and they share the contents between them.

Pidge hands off to Matt, and his sunny smile fills the space. “I’ve been told I’m not allowed to let you leave. Is that Kosmo, who’s a good boy?!” Kosmo reappears behind Keith at the sound of Matt’s voice, the wolf’s tail sweeping a shelf clear behind them, and Matt grimaces. “Sorry.”

They chat about nothing really but in that time, Keith feels more relaxed, lighter, _warmer_ , until Pidge comes back, her face grim. “Coran hasn’t seen him, neither has Iverson, or Hunk, he took a shore leave from the Atlas after something happened on the bridge while the ship was in orbit around New Altea. That was two weeks ago and Shiro was only supposed to be gone a couple of days, somewhere he hadn’t specified but most people figured he was coming your way. They’ve been trying to handle his disappearance quietly, the idiots, they’re convinced he’s not here on Earth though he might’ve stopped off first. Lance is going to come in, he hasn’t seen or heard from Shiro in months. Do you… Keith, do you think something happened to him?” Her mouth trembles until Chip appears beside her, his face confused and his metal fingers touching her quivering lip. Pidge smiles down at her child until he smiles back. “Wanna say “Hi!” to Uncle Keith?”

She lifts Chip up to the screen. “Hi, Uncle Keith! Hi, Kosmo!” The voice is modulated somewhere between Pidge and Matt, and it’s adorable. “Is something wrong with Uncle Shiro?”

“Hi Chip, no, we’re just talking. I’m sure he’s fine.”

Chip tilts his head at Keith. “The last time Uncle Shiro visited us, his heart rate and blood pressure were heightened. He was hyperventilating and his brain activity was….”

Pidge set her artificial child on the ground, ducking down a little to look him eye to eye. “Can you download all your data on Uncle Shiro to Mommy’s personal laptop please, buddy?” When she gets a hesitant nod in return, she kisses the robot’s head. “Okay, then you can go play some more.” She glances at Keith. “Gimme a sec to get him set up.”

“Shiro can take care of himself, you know, Pidge.” Keith’s worried though, Shiro’s disappeared before; one time abducted, one time _dead_. “It’s probably nothing more than....” He can’t think of anything and trails off into nothing.

“Sure, yeah, of course… so I’ll hack the footage from the bridge.” The ghost of old Katie is there in her rough edged grin. “Let’s see what happened that has everyone so concerned.”

“I’ll start looking for Shiro as much as I can, Kolivan and mom still have a lot of contacts out here but let’s start with Earth, he can’t just disappear. I’ll be in touch, Pidge. Keep a channel open.”

Days pass and Keith begins to put a contingency in place for a prolonged absence from the Blade. Just in case. Keith’s growing fear begins and ends with one thing. While the Atlas cannot transform without Shiro, it’s not like they need it to anymore. The war is over, Voltron is gone, and the Atlas is a mega robot that will never be needed again. That thought rolls around in Keith’s head for a few varga before he discards it.

Pidge messages him while he’s asleep. An interim commander has been installed on the ship and Earth has handed Shiro’s disappearance over to the coalition. They’re better resourced for investigating it. Shiro is well regarded among their allies but Keith knows it’s not going to be a high priority when it appears Shiro himself choose to vanish.

He sets the contingency plan in motion. It relies heavily on Krolia and Kolivan overseeing operations from afar with Acxa nominally in charge. His mother calls him when the request reaches her.

“I’m heading to Earth, to see if I can follow his trail,” he tells his mother, and lays it all out for her. Shiro’s last message to him, the undisclosed event on the Atlas bridge, Shiro’s subsequent disappearance. She already knows.

“I have the footage from the Atlas, Keith. It wasn’t one event alone. I’ll send it all to you but don’t watch it until you’re with your friends.” There’s a warning in her eyes. “I love you, Keith, promise me.”

“I love you too, Mom.” 

“Bring me something tangible to investigate when you find it, Kolivan and I volunteered to lead any search when more information comes in from our team. That’s you, you’re our team, and any you choose to help you.” Her eyes soften, if she was here, she would be pulling him into her arms. “You’ll find him if anyone can, Keith,” she replies, but her expression is one of concern. “Kolivan and I will monitor Blade operations while you’re searching.”

He smiles goodbye and grabs his bag, a ship is ready to go by the time he reaches the deck, Kosmo following him eagerly.

The file arrives when he’s leaving but he promised her so he waits to watch it. When he reaches Earth, he leaves his ship with Pidge, it doesn’t take long once he gets started. He finds a trail that ends at a storage unit used by Garrison officers, rented under a false name. Shiro hasn’t gone to great lengths, just enough to slow them down. Like a trail of bread crumbs.

When he draws the door up and shines a light into the storage space, Shiro’s meagre belongings don’t even fill it but it’s everything that means something to him, that he had in his quarters on the Atlas. Keith knows most of it by sight.

The rental is not for a few days or even a week. “He paid for six months.” It’s all laid out in Pidge’s lab, she’s cleared every table and surface ready. Photos of the team, so many photos. All of his trophies pre and post-Kerberos, his uniforms both paladin and Garrison, his dog tags and IDs. Well thumbed books, a few token gifts from his time in the coalition. Keith picks up random things and turns them over in his hands. Kosmo is lying on the floor nearby snoozing after Keith explains how important it is not to break anything.

“What do _you_ think is going on, Keith?” asks Hunk, glancing up to look at Keith, his face wrinkled in concern. He’s holding a snowglobe from the space mall. Epcot Centre, circa twentieth century. Hunk shakes it gently and the snow floats sedately around spaceship Earth. True vintage. Very Shiro.

A wooden box is bundled up in clothes. Keith recognises it, it was always in plain sight in Shiro’s room, but always locked. Keith had thought it decorative but he breaks the lock off carefully. Inside is the cloth that Keith had wrapped around the hilt of his mom’s blade, rolled up; he’d thought it was lost when he awakened his mom’s that fateful day. One of Hunk’s handwritten recipes faded with water stains, though it might’ve been Hunk’s tears. Lance’s old phone, the screen cracked; it powers up immediately when Pidge puts it on the charging station. Alpha and numeric keys from a broken laptop that spell out Pidge’s name and a photo of her with Matt from the Kerberos launch. A few gac and other coins but only enough for nostalgia value. Some fluff from Kosmo’s coat, combed into a small envelope, sparkle in the light. A carefully pressed juniberry flower with a blue ribbon wrapped tightly around the stem.

A pair of rings, white gold, both inscribed with kanji, nestled together in an old worn ring case wrapped in silk. A wrinkled old post-it note is stuck to the inside of the box, folded carefully into a tiny neat square.

He unfolds it and reads his own bird scratch, and his world falls out from under him. Keith knows the words like they’re engraved on his heart and has to turn away for a moment, panting heavily. “Fuck,” he whispers, under his breath. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Pidge takes it from his hand. “It’s killing me when you’re away. That sounds familiar. What does it mean?” Pidge studies the rings without touching them. “What do the rings say?”

No one confesses to know and Pidge scans them to translate later.

They find Allura’s tiara, sans the stone, carefully packed in a custom jewellery case.

“Did you know he had Allura’s…?” Lance removes it and holds the circlet to his chest. “Coran thought it was lost.”

“No,” says Keith, he’s almost overcome by the bloody minded sentiment in keeping this stuff, half of which he doesn’t even know how Shiro got out of the castle before it was gone since his body was half dead and his soul was stuck in the Black Lion. “He must’ve picked it up after… h-his arm... I didn’t know he had _any_ of this stuff.”

Pidge glances at him, not judging, just thoughtful.

Hunk picks up the recipe. “I remember this one, it was for your birthday, Keith. Back on the castle, before we fought Zarkon.”

Before Shiro died.

He gets control of himself, locking down his emotions before they send him spiralling. “Okay,” his voice cracks and he clears his throat, tries again. “Okay, none of this tells us where he’s gone though.” The trail ended at the storage locker, Shiro paid cash, Keith had paid five times more to take the stuff.

“What name did he use? Ryou Holgersson? Wasn’t that alternate Shiro from the ship from the place….”

“Sven,” corrects Lance, he’s returned the tiara to the case but hasn’t relinquished the case back to Shiro’s belongings.

“Right, Sven.” Pidge’s fingers fly over keys, the scene is so familiar, she hums softly to herself, expanding her search. “With alternate Slav. Bet Shiro was thrilled to know there were so many Slavs running around the alternate universes.”

Keith snorts a laugh.

“What if he doesn’t want to be found?” asks Lance, he’s carrying Chip, swinging the boy around. Chip’s screams of delight are piercing and it’s giving Keith a headache.

“Can you…” he motions to other side of the lab, and both Lance and Chip poke their tongues out at him. He growls, then pokes his out in retort. “This box says he does.” Or does it? Keith is holding the ring case, he knows what they say, Shiro told him once. They belonged to Shiro’s parents, dead for years before he even entered the garrison. He slips the note back into the case. “I, uh, I need to go out for a while. On my own.”

The other paladins look at him a few long minutes, then each one nods.

“Oh, and we need to watch the bridge footage when I get back.”

He borrows Lance’s hovercycle, flying it out to the shack. He knows the moment he walks in that Shiro’s been there, he left the keys with him to keep an eye on the place but recent footprints smear the dust. He follows them around the room, stopping where they stop, at the wall with the photo board. His things have been plucked off and held then pinned back where they were found. Just slightly out of place. ‘It could’ve been anyone,’ he thinks.

The photo of the cave draws his eye, there are a lot of footprints there, from multiple visits with dust filling in some of the prints between.

How many times did Shiro come here?

He takes the bike up there, the caves are much the same as he left them. His fingers trace the pictographs on the wall, they don’t light up like they didn’t back then but as he walks past them, the torchlight reveals more scuffed footprints on the ground. Shiro’s boot size, he’s been here as well.

Keith slides down into the Blue Lion’s cavern, it all happened so quickly the first visit, a chance decision that changed all of their lives. He takes his time as he studies the cave, there are other pictographs that none of them saw that day. His heart beats a little faster as he scans the cave walls, not leaving one pictograph undocumented.

When he returns to the lab, he finds the other paladins working at stations on separate projects. Hunk is arranging supplies for a journey and Lance is securing weapons via Sam. "Anything?" he asks.

Pidge looks at him. “Got something, maybe.” It’s a berth on a fleet of relief ships that left the system two weeks ago with cargo for destinations out near the rim. “Berth was paid for by a Ryou with a re-purposed fighter in the cargo hold. I backtracked the fighter, it was modified for long distance flights and short hyper jumps.” Pidge sends the relevant info to each of them. “How big is your ship, Keith?”

Not big enough for all of them, not big enough for more than Keith and Kosmo. “Maybe I should go alone….” he begins to say but something nags at him, since the cave; he needs to study the images again. They don’t even argue with him as he changes his mind too quickly.  “But it’ll be nice to have the team back together, Shiro would appreciate it, I think, if you can spare the time. My ship’s too small for all of us though.”

“Let’s ask Coran, he always had a soft spot for Shiro.” Lance has already called his family, letting them know he’s going to be gone for a few days minimum. Hunk has arranged for Romelle and Sal to cover his workload. Pidge tells her parents she’s going, they will care for Chip with Matt while she’s gone. She takes longer explaining it to Chip.

Keith contacts Coran, his heart in his mouth as he explains. The thing about being the leader is being the face in front of hard conversations. Words have become easier with time but anything to do with Shiro still stalls him. “He’s missing,” is what he says. ‘I can’t lose him,’ is what he feels.

“Ah,” says Coran, nodding, his eyes are kind though. “It’s been a difficult few years for us all. Let me see what I have available.” Coran sends them a ship, fast and sleek, wormholing it to them in a couple of vargas, it’ll beat the relief ship to the next stop. It requires two pilots to fly but they can live out of it easily with bunks, a shower, and a goo dispenser that has Hunk groaning something about unexpected modifications. It’s more than Keith expected, by far.

“Coran, thank you. It’s perfect.”

“Bring Shiro to Altea when you find him, Number Four.” Keith hasn’t been Four for a while but it always makes him smile.

He nods. “Sure, Coran, hopefully we’ll see you soon.” His mantra to Shiro has been to save him as many times as it takes but given the state of their relationship, does Shiro even trust him to deliver on the promise?

Pidge slides into the co-pilot seat before Lance can call shotgun, and enters coordinates for a system so far from home, Keith is concerned she made an error. He looks at her, his eyebrow quirking up but she returns his gaze, nodding.

“That’s pretty far out on the rim,” he murmurs, warming the engines. Keith recognises one of the neighbouring systems, the Blade were there not long ago. It was an active sector, pirates still raiding semi-regularly. They got stuck there for weeks until the coalition could send a permanent team to defend the system from the attacks.

“Yeah, the fleet is delivering relief and supplies to a bunch of systems that got missed in the initial sweep. From what I read, the systems they’re going to never really recovered from being occupied by the Galra, it’s only recently come to light that the empire reached that far out. The fleet have some small coalition ships for protection, but the freighters are old Galra battle cruisers that they modified for cargo, crewed by former rebels.”

Therein lies a new problem. Shiro is a well known face, a poster boy for the Voltron Coalition, even with the silvered hair and a new prosthetic, someone should’ve recognised him and reported it. He checks again with Sam before they leave but there are no sightings.

Hunk finishes loading the ship but not before nightfall, and helps Lance carry the last crates on board, full of weapons and their paladin armour. They don’t know what they’re walking into but they’re going to be prepared for it. Pidge goes aft to talk to her parents and brother, who’ve come to see them off.

“Matt’s going to pack and store Shiro’s stuff for when we get back,” she says on the way back through. He hears her talking to Kosmo, politely asking the star wolf to stop drooling on her pillow. “Your pillow now,” she calls forward to him.

He laughs.

Lance takes her seat, grinning lightly. “Mullet.”

He’s mellowed since Allura’s death. Keith’s not sure it’s a good thing; the spark, _the light_ , is dimmed in his friend, but when it comes to the oldest and tiredest of Lance’s insults, Keith just smiles. In his time among the Galra, where there is hair on a head, it’s a mullet or some unkind variation of it. “And proud,” he growls.

“Never change,” Lance coughs out with a laugh and Keith looks over. Lance’s cheek marks glow in the darkened cockpit as he chuckles to himself. They finish prepping the unfamiliar ship for takeoff easily, finding most of the controls modelled from the pods they piloted on the old Castle of Lions.

“It’s time. Let’s go find him.” He pushes the stick and they accelerate out of the atmosphere. Above Earth, a wormhole opens, as promised by Coran; enough for one long jump to make up time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever reach that moment when you're about to click post and you think it's all okay, there are no more errors? Then a dozen more leap off the page and punch you in the eyeballs? I'm going to click post and hope for the best. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, see you shortly with chapter three.

**Author's Note:**

> Just to reassure any of my subscribers to other series fics I'm writing, I've not abandoned a single one of my Voltron series fics. This fandom has given me a lot of joy over the last couple of years and I want to pay it back. 
> 
> After this, I'll be returning with a final chapter of And I'll Form The Head and the angst will be ridiculous, further chapters of I Am Flesh which is going down a very odd path, and There's A Fire Starting In My Heart where Pidge continues to be adorkable and Shiro remains clueless... or does he?
> 
> Title from the lyrics of the song: For You - Liam Payne, Rita Ora.
> 
> In the immortal words of arahir: if there are errors, don't tell me. they are my children now.


End file.
